18 More Christmas-y Quilts

Reel Quilts

An elegant reel block quilt  in red and green. 1850- likely from Maryland. Love the secondary design created by the  block placement and of course that swag and tassel border!

Close up of the swag border- look at the quilting under the green swag piece - yes those are 2 spoons. Now look above the swag- a pair of quilted scissors. Be sure to click on the photo to enlarge so you can see the quilting.

And here is another Reel block but this one is a left over from a dated 1846 Reel quilt top and it was recycled into a  English paper pieced Star quilt dated 1850, shown below.

Enoch and Mary Hoopes Worrall's signature quilt from Chester Co., Pennsylvania.. The corner reel blocks are from a reel quilt made for Enoch and Mary's daughter, Mary Worrall. The Worrall's were Quakers and the quilt is family record/genealogy quilts with other wonderful details.

17 ish More Christmasy quilty love

Details of this amazing antique signature album quilt made for Sister Esther McAlister of New York City. Dated 1858. Quilt is full of heart motifs and loving tribute inscriptions.

Day 16 Some Christmasy Red and Green

Can't believe it is almost Christmas! Time to share some antique beauties with you. And if you'd like to see these in the cloth. I'm available to come to your guild, shop, or show. I love sharing these and making people smile. I have a variety of trunk show/talks, 1/2 day and all day quilt history classes and also classes that combine sewing with antique viewing.

2 blocks of turkey red prints with lovely delicate blue details. c. 1850.

The quilt has beautiful quilting. Below is a maple leaf - stem is bottom right and leaf is pointing left (it helps to hold your head sideways). Click on the photo to enlarge.

A cool quilted sunflower

Like many early quilts - it is very large. 96" x 100"

Large size is often a good clue to an early quilt.

Preview of tomorrow's quilt - come back for more Christmasy quilts

Day 15 - Pick Me I'm Cute

Pick Me, I'm Cute (Flower Humor) 

2010 Sandra Starley - original design

Part of my Word Play series

finished for the 2010 Hoffman Challenge 

Selected to travel across the US in the challenge

The 2010 challenge fabric:

However, the quilt was started for the 2009 Hoffman Challenge 

All the letter were completed but life intervened ...

 Here are the 2009 letters before they were trimmed and integrated to work with the 2010 blue fabric

And here are a couple of close ups of the altered blocks

I'm glad I got it finished and accepted into the 2010 challenge and that I didn't give up!

day 14 - Pennsylvania Posies

Another challenge quilt ... have you noticed a trend here? This one was made for the Pilgrim Roy Challenge to raise funds for the National Quilt Museum in Paducah Kentucky and so I named it Pennsylvania Posies for Paducah.

Hand appliqued and hand quilted. Machine quilted in the ditch of the 1/2 square triangles.

The challenge fabrics plus my 2 additions (the pink on the right and the bottom yellow/cheddar).

The full quilt

Pennsylvania Posies - original design
40" x 40"

It was inspired by several antique quilts in my collection. And you can see more about the challenge by looking at my posts from earlier this year. After the show, the quilts will travel to other quilt shows in the US and then will be auctioned off next April at the 2013 National Quilt Museum fundraiser Auction.  
This quilt was hand appliqued and then the applique flowers and baskets were stuffed for a trapunto effect.  While the borders/ major seams were machine quilted, the applique motifs and blocks were hand quilted.  The Legacy wool batting was a dream to quilt through and even with heavier thread I was getting about 10 stitches per inch without (hardly) trying.

Day 13 Modern Cheddar Stars

 Post 26 of the month between the 2 blogs - wowza!

Today is another cheddar stars quilt made for the Riley Blake Challenge charity fundraiser with the 2010 Home Machine Quilting Show. It is also inspired by the same antique cheddar star quilt that inspired my cheddar repro shared on day 9. This version is modern and larger scale with 5 inch stars instead of 3 inches. It is a quick and fun pattern and work in all types of fabrics.  The pattern is available in my etsy shop.

The Riley Blake fabric was pretty wild with large polka dots, stripes, paisleys and pink, orange, red, green, etc. One day the fabric was sitting next to some solid cheddar fabric for another project and VOILA!!

Not sure why or how but the cheddar actually calmed down the busy fabrics. It still looks a bit wild but wait until you see it with my inspiration- an antique quilt in my collection. Here is a bit of the challenge quilt and the inspiration quilt together: I love how they are so different and similar at the same time.

Another detail-

The full Riley Blake Quilt 

2010  Sandra Starley
 29" x 29"

day 12 Folk Art

I still get a kick out of this little folk art scene! My original Design. Hand appliqued and hand quilted.

If you'd like to try you hand at this one, the pattern is available at my etsy shop.

Folk art -art made by us folks- doesn't have to follow stuffy rules like size or scale. It is okay to make a giant sunflower and a cat as big as a purple house. Sewn with a running/gather top stitch that adds a decorative detail to the appliques. It is relaxing to not worry about hiding stitches.

Full quilt is 16" x 16"

I echo quilted around the appliques and added in a sun in the corner. I used variegated thread to add interest.

day 11 - Q is for Quilt

Another one of my favorite quilts is this miniature made for the Quilt Alliance Crazy Quilt Challenge. It won an Honorable Mention in the challenge.

Q is for Quilt. I still remember how long it took to stitch each of those little * in the swag - yes, it was by machine but still slow and yet FUN!!! These are like before/after pics.

Here's what the paperpieced letters look like before they get the decorative stitching/quilting. I use 2

 layers of batting and embroider and quilt at the same time.

Love creating word play quilts and you can see I took the "Crazy Quilt" challenge quite literally!

The full quilt is only 16" x 16" with 120 different fabrics - YES'm you read that right. I squeezed in a lot of fabrics in a small quilt. It is a easy quilt to make and there is a pattern available. Email me for details or wait a few days for me to get it on my etsy shop.

day 10 - Swingin' Bird

This little bird still makes me smile. My original design. Made for the Beatles Challenge, it illustrates one of their earlier songs: "And Your Bird Can Sing". It is touring the country. It was shown last year at the Houston quilt show.

The song says the bird is green and swings so I put her on a swing and made lots of notes. Fusible/machine applique and machine quilting. My sister did the applique (my plan of doing hand applique was derailed by an accident) and I did the quilting. She also donated some cool rainbow shoelaces which I used for the swing - they were the perfect touch, Another great detail is the appliqued frog in the bottom right - my Mom cut into her favorite frog fabric :) I also like the eye cut from a dotted fabric and the rickrack legs and the flower buttons too.

"And Your Bird Can Sing"
Sandra Starley 2013

The backing is awesome 1970s vintage floral gingham fabric. Back in the day, my Mom made me a canopy bed cover and quilt from this fabric. It was fun to use some of the leftover fabric many years later.

You can see my Bird and 149 of its friends in the Beatles Book from Schiffer publishing.

Day 9 Antique Makeover

On of my favorite antique updates is this Cheddar Star quilt: "Cheddar Stars Over Moab". The quilt was juried into the big quilt show, AQS Paducah, KY in the miniature category and was patterned in the American Quilt Study Group's 19th Century Stars Book.  Want to try your hand at this fun pattern?  It is available at my etsy shop.

Miniature repro 20  x 24 

Machine pieced and hand quilted

my hand quilted repro with 3 inch blocks

Here's the full size antique inspiration from my antique collection

Ohio Stars from Ohio c. 1890

74" x 87"

auditioning fabrics is an essential step in creating an accurate reproduction

Day 8 Moab Rock Talk

Being a southwest gal, I really groove on petroglyphs and rock art, in real life and on fabric too.
This quilt was made for a "Text" Challenge - it seemed to me that petroglyphs were some of the first text messages. Traveled with the Text Challenge to Mancuso Shows. Won award in challenge. Original design.

Mountain Goat/Sheep

Moutain Lion

Another Sheep

full quilt

Day 7 - Arrows Redone

I've Got the Blues But Things are Looking Up - reproduction of antique arrow quilt in my collection. Made for the Quilt Alliance (Alliance for American Quilts challenge).

Old and New

16" x 16"

Yes, those little arrows are tiny 1" squares